FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT SPECIAL EDUCATION - PAGE 3

North Shore School District 112 wants to offer a more responsive team approach to help students with special needs, as well as those struggling in the middle of the pack, officials said. Guy Schumacher, assistant superintendent, detailed the new Flexible Service Delivery System during a recent school board meeting. It involves merging aspects of general education and special education, and focusing on early intervention for all students. Six elementary school principals will attend a two-day training workshop next month in Highland Park to learn the system.

Following in the footsteps of Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills School District 181, Hinsdale Township High School District 86 is moving closer to cutting its ties with the La Grange Area Department of Special Education (LADSE) cooperative — a move that means it would educate special needs students on its own. The school board recently unanimously approved an agreement that lays out the details of the withdrawal from the agency that was founded in 1957 to provide special education to students from member districts.

Lissette Cruz thought she had won. She had a court order saying Chicago Public Schools had to place her 13-year-old son in a therapeutic day school to make up for the myriad ways the district had failed him over the years. That was June 29. October arrived, and Christopher Cruz, a bright but emotionally disturbed eighth grader, still hadn't been placed in any school. He was staying at home or with relatives, and occasionally accompanying his mother to her job -- she's a Chicago Public Schools teacher.

Homewood-Flossmoor High School will put more resources into its special education program next year, officials said. The District 233 school board recently expanded the role of Assistant Principal Barbara Luoma to manage federal reporting requirements and an increase in students in need of special education services. The school fell short of meeting adequate yearly progress standards in special education, according to No Child Left Behind guidelines, district spokesman David Thieman said.

Special education teacher Colleen Kudla oversees a classroom of eight students with severe disabilities. Without the help of her three aides, Kudla says, she wouldn't be able to manage class. "All the students are nonverbal," said Kudla, who teaches at Central Elementary School in southwest suburban Plainfield. "My biggest fear would be losing my staff. " With Illinois facing a potential $10 billion deficit that includes a backlog of about $1.2 billion in unpaid bills for public schools, districts throughout the state have been slashing teaching and administrative positions left and right.

School District 12 board members were told Tuesday night that new federal rules have altered the way school officials are allowed to deal with special education students, especially when it comes to disciplinary action. Board President Maureen Woodall said the federal mandates were discussed at a meeting Monday night of the North DuPage Special Education Cooperative. She said one of the new mandates stipulates that no special education student can be suspended or expelled because of conduct that is a result of "behavior that is a manifestation of the disability."

George Peter Diamond, 54, former chief executive officer of the DuPage County Cooperative Association for Special Education, died Thursday of a rare brain disease at his downtown Chicago home. As CEO of the organization from 1983 to 1994, Mr. Diamond oversaw the operation of special-education programs in the county's schools. An adviser to the Chicago Public Schools and the Illinois Board of Education, he advocated including special-education students in regular classes. An Oak Park native, Mr. Diamond began his teaching career in the early 1960s at Addison School District 4. He was the district's director of special education from 1970 to 1979.

Parents and educators voiced their opinions on a new special education plan to mainstream disabled children into local schools during a public meeting Monday at Roberto Clemente High School. It was the first of three sessions held this week. "We need a different system . . . because what we have now is not working," said Bernie Noven, a social worker who sees students at four elementary schools in Pilsen. He criticized the Board of Education for its handling of special education needs in the past.